Vaux Likely To Leave Harvard

Associate Professor of Linguistics Bert Vaux said yesterday he is not likely to return to Harvard next fall.

Vaux said he would be interested in a permanent position at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he is presently located while on leave from Harvard.

“I like it here and I like my colleagues,” Vaux said. “There’s a good chance that something will work out here in the near future.”

Vaux said he was informally told in January by Jay H. Jasanoff, the chair of Harvard’s linguistics department, that the department did not intend to hire a senior professor in his field of phonology.

According to Vaux, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ appointment handbook mandates that junior professors must be evaluated solely on their academic record unless their department chair informs them after five years at Harvard that promotion to tenure is unlikely.

Vaux said Jasanoff’s letter promoting him to associate professor after his fifth year only said it was “difficult to predict” the outcome of his tenure review.

“I’m not pleased that my evaluation is not being based on my record of publications and teaching,” Vaux said.

But according to Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles, the appointment handbook merely suggests guidelines for department chairs.

Although the Department of Linguistics has not formally notified Vaux of its plans, Vaux said the department has already started a search to fill his spot on the Faculty with a professor in a different field.

Neither Jasanoff, who is on leave, nor acting department chair Michael S. Flier could be reached for comment yesterday.

Two weeks ago, Vaux sent an e-mail to a few dozen linguistics concentrators and graduate students outlining the details of his case for tenure, encouraging them to meet and “brainstorm about possible courses of action,” and suggesting that it would be “helpful” for them to meet with Knowles and University President Lawrence H. Summers.

Seventeen students attended a meeting to discuss Vaux’s case on Feb. 17, but concentrators have not yet taken any collective action on behalf of the professor.

—Staff writer Dan Rosenheck can be reached at rosenhec@fas.harvard.edu.